Another man freed in Chicago

Cops accused of beating him for rape confession

By M. SPENCER GREEN
and DON BABWIN
THE Associated Press

Published: December 11, 2013;Last modified: December 12, 2013 05:00AM

PONTIAC, Ill. — During his more than 30 years behind bars, Stanley Wrice insisted he was innocent, that Chicago police had beat him until he confessed to a rape he didn’t commit. On Wednesday, he walked out of an Illinois prison a free man, thanks to a judge’s order that served as a reminder that one of the darkest chapters in the city’s history is far from over.

“It’s just an overwhelming feeling of joy, happiness that finally it’s over,” said Wrice, who was greeted by his two daughters, his attorneys and other supporters. He wore sweat pants, a dark jacket and baseball cap and carried a cardboard box filled with letters, photographs and legal papers — all of his possessions after three decades in prison.

Wrice, who was sentenced to 100 years behind bars for a 1982 sexual assault, is among more than two dozen inmates — most of them black men — who have alleged they were tortured by officers under the command of disgraced former Chicago police Lt. Jon Burge in a scandal that gave the nation’s third-largest city a reputation as haven for rogue cops and helped lead to the clearing of Illinois’ death row. Some of the prisoners have been freed; some still are behind bars, hoping to get the kind of hearing that Wrice got that eventually led to his freedom.

Wrice’s case went all the way to the Illinois Supreme Court before he got that hearing. But it marked a major victory for other inmates and former inmates, because the courts said that no matter what other evidence authorities have against a defendant, a coerced confession could never be dismissed as “harmless error.” That means that if such a ruling is made, a case must return to the trial court, as was Wrice’s, for a hearing.

In ordering Wrice set free and granting him a new trial, Judge Richard Walsh said Tuesday that two officers had “lied” about the way they’d treated Wrice, who testified that the officers beat him with a flashlight and a 20-inch piece of rubber. A witness testified that he, too, was beaten by the same officers until he agreed to give false testimony against Wrice at trial.